Major League Baseball And WM Team Up To Strike Out Waste

MLB and WM go to bat for the environment.

Major League Baseball (MLB) is a seasoned veteran at encouraging and supporting sustainable ballpark environmental practices. Taking that commitment to the next level, the League has now teamed up with WM (formerly Waste Management), an all-star player in the environmental services industry.

In April 2024, WM was named MLB’s first-ever Official Sustainability Partner. The ground-breaking collaboration, in effect through 2028, offers all 30 major league clubs access to WM’s sustainability consulting services that focus on strategic planning and implementation of initiatives designed to enhance existing activations, while creating new ones. The league and clubs can track environmental impact metrics on a digital platform provided through the WM partnership.

WM’s leadership in materials management and zero-waste implementation encompasses more than two decades’ experience providing advisory services to companies, events, venues and teams. Their most widely-known success is the weeklong WM Phoenix Open, which has achieved 13 consecutive years of zero-waste certification.

Eco-friendly tactics launched at that event have been replicated at sporting events and venues elsewhere, but this is the first time WM has had potential exposure to an entire league.

Mike Watson, WM senior vice president and chief customer officer, emphasized that their approach in the MLB space is not a “one size fits all.”

“We’re not going to come in and say you have to be zero-waste tomorrow. It’s more about finding the right opportunities that make sense in your locale because there is already an infrastructure in place.”

Sustainable Development Goals

Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals